Knoxville Museum of Art
Encyclopedia
The Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA) is a contemporary art
museum located at 1050 World's Fair
Park in Knoxville, Tennessee
. The KMA is committed to developing exhibitions by emerging artists of national and international reputation.
in the Neoclassical Revival
style. The museum merged with the Knoxville Art Center in 1962, and the name was changed in 1987 to the Knoxville Museum of Art, the same year that the museum moved to the Candy Factory building at the site of the 1982 World's Fair
.
The present 53200 square feet (4,942.4 m²) museum building was completed in 1990 following an $11 million community fundraising campaign. The steel and concrete building, designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes
, has an exterior skin of Tennessee pink marble
. The building is named for Jim Clayton
, who was the largest donor to its construction.
The museum includes five galleries, as well as a Sculpture Terrace, and two large outdoor garden areas.
is one of the greatest modernists in American architecture history. He was born in 1915, Chicago, Illinois, the son of Cecil Barnes, a lawyer who graduated from Harvard, and Margaret Ayer Barns, a successful writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Years of Grace” in 1931. He studied English, art history, and history of architecture in Harvard. After one year teaching in Milton Academy, he returned to the school and studied architecture in the Harvard Graduate School of Design
. In the school, he was influenced as a modernist under the leadership of two German immigrant architects, Walter Gropius
and Marcel Breuer
. After travelling in Europe on a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, he moved to New York to start his practice. His work ranged widely between residential, commercial, educational, and cultural projects. The style of his work can be described as pure modernist. He often used simple and geometrical forms to approach in his project. His selflessness led him to build projects that corresponded to site and context, client preferences, user friendliness, and he often achieved a good balance in the limited budget and various regulations. The quality of his work contributed to the development of American modern architecture. He died in Cupertino, California, 2004, at 89 years.
Representative work
, Ori Gersht
, Red Grooms
, Robert Longo
, Loretta Lux
, William Morris
, Ulf Puder, Hiraki Sawa, Kenneth Snelson
, Robert Stackhouse
, and Anne Wilson
. The museum is also committed to the preservation and development of Arts in East Tennessee. The collection holds examples of work by many of East Tennessee's greatest artists, including Lloyd Branson
, Catherine Wiley
, Joseph Delaney
, Walter Hollis Stevens, Richard Jolley, and Bessie Harvey
.
The museum has a collection of nine Thorne Miniature Rooms. The rooms are notable miniatures, designed by Narcissa Niblack Thorne. The largest collection of Thorne Miniature Rooms is located at the Art Institute of Chicago
.
In 2009, the museum announced plans for the permanent installation of a sculpture in glass to be created by artist Richard Jolley. The sculpture will cover the museum's Great Hall, an area 100 feet long by 40 feet wide, making it one of the nations largest artworks made of glass. The sculpture is still in its early stages of design. No date has been set for completion.
, Lloyd Branson
, Joseph Delaney
, Beauford Delaney
, and Bessie Harvey
.
The KMA has a commitment to the exhibition of work by modern and contemporary artists. Past exhibitions at the Museum have featured solo exhibitions by contemporary artists such as Anne Wilson
, Jun Kaneko
, Candida Höfer
, Jim Campbell
, Anton Vidokle
, Johanna Billing
, Eva Zeisel
, Chuck Close
, and Ai Weiwei
.
The museum also has an ongoing interest in the creation of first solo museum shows for promising new artists. As part of this ongoing series, KMA has been host to solo exhibitions by artists such as Tam Van Tran, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph
, Clare Rojas, Sarah Hobbs, Michael Raedecker
, Timothy Horn, Seonna Hong
, and Tomory Dodge
.
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
museum located at 1050 World's Fair
1982 World's Fair
The 1982 World's Fair, formally known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the United States. The theme of the exposition was "Energy Turns the World."...
Park in Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
. The KMA is committed to developing exhibitions by emerging artists of national and international reputation.
History
The museum was founded by Mary Katherine Dulin Folger in 1961 as the Dulin Gallery of Art. The gallery was housed in the H.L. Dulin House at 3100 Kingston Pike. The Dulin House was designed in 1915 by prominent architect John Russell PopeJohn Russell Pope
John Russell Pope was an architect most known for his designs of the National Archives and Records Administration building , the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.-Biography:Pope was born in New York in 1874, the son of a successful...
in the Neoclassical Revival
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
style. The museum merged with the Knoxville Art Center in 1962, and the name was changed in 1987 to the Knoxville Museum of Art, the same year that the museum moved to the Candy Factory building at the site of the 1982 World's Fair
1982 World's Fair
The 1982 World's Fair, formally known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the United States. The theme of the exposition was "Energy Turns the World."...
.
The present 53200 square feet (4,942.4 m²) museum building was completed in 1990 following an $11 million community fundraising campaign. The steel and concrete building, designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes
Edward Larrabee Barnes
Edward Larrabee Barnes was a American architect.Barnes was born in Chicago, Illinois into a family he described as "incense-swinging High Episcopalians", consisting of Cecil Barnes, a lawyer, and Margaret Helen Ayer, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for the novel Year of Grace...
, has an exterior skin of Tennessee pink marble
Tennessee marble
Tennessee marble is a type of crystalline limestone found primarily in East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Long esteemed by architects and builders for its pinkish-gray color and the ease with which it is polished, this stone has been used in the construction of numerous notable...
. The building is named for Jim Clayton
Jim Clayton (Clayton Homes)
James L. "Jim" Clayton, Sr. is an American entrepreneur who founded Clayton Homes in 1966 and built it into the United States' largest producer and seller of manufactured housing, a publicly traded company that was sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2003 for $1.7 billion. He lives in Knoxville,...
, who was the largest donor to its construction.
The museum includes five galleries, as well as a Sculpture Terrace, and two large outdoor garden areas.
Architect
Edward Larrabee BarnesEdward Larrabee Barnes
Edward Larrabee Barnes was a American architect.Barnes was born in Chicago, Illinois into a family he described as "incense-swinging High Episcopalians", consisting of Cecil Barnes, a lawyer, and Margaret Helen Ayer, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for the novel Year of Grace...
is one of the greatest modernists in American architecture history. He was born in 1915, Chicago, Illinois, the son of Cecil Barnes, a lawyer who graduated from Harvard, and Margaret Ayer Barns, a successful writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Years of Grace” in 1931. He studied English, art history, and history of architecture in Harvard. After one year teaching in Milton Academy, he returned to the school and studied architecture in the Harvard Graduate School of Design
Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard Graduate School of Design is a graduate school at Harvard University offering degrees in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design.-History:...
. In the school, he was influenced as a modernist under the leadership of two German immigrant architects, Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
and Marcel Breuer
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer , was a Hungarian-born modernist, architect and furniture designer of Jewish descent. One of the masters of Modernism, Breuer displayed interest in modular construction and simple forms.- Life and work :Known to his friends and associates as Lajkó, Breuer studied and taught at...
. After travelling in Europe on a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, he moved to New York to start his practice. His work ranged widely between residential, commercial, educational, and cultural projects. The style of his work can be described as pure modernist. He often used simple and geometrical forms to approach in his project. His selflessness led him to build projects that corresponded to site and context, client preferences, user friendliness, and he often achieved a good balance in the limited budget and various regulations. The quality of his work contributed to the development of American modern architecture. He died in Cupertino, California, 2004, at 89 years.
Representative work
- Haystack Mountain School of CraftsHaystack Mountain School of CraftsHaystack Mountain School of Crafts, commonly called "Haystack," is a craft school located on the coast of Deer Isle, Maine.Haystack was founded in 1950. It took its name from its original location near Haystack Mountain, in Montville, Maine...
, Deer Isle, Maine 1958–61 - Walker Art CenterWalker Art CenterThe Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1966–71 - Indianapolis Museum of ArtIndianapolis Museum of ArtThe Indianapolis Museum of Art is an encyclopedic art museum located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The museum, which underwent a $74 million expansion in 2005, is located on a campus on the near northwest area outside downtown Indianapolis, northwest of Crown Hill Cemetery.The...
, Indianapolis, Indiana 1969 - Smart Museum, Chicago, 1974
- Carnegie Museum of ArtCarnegie Museum of ArtThe Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
, Pittsburgh, 1974 - Dallas Museum of ArtDallas Museum of ArtThe Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...
, Dallas, Texas 1978–83 - 590 Madison Avenue590 Madison AvenueFormerly the IBM Building, 590 Madison Avenue is a tall skyscraper at the corner of 57th street in New York City, New York. It was completed in 1983 and has 41 floors. The building cost US$10 million, has of floor area, has 24 elevators, and is the 89th tallest building in New York. Edward...
(former IBM Building), New York City, 1983 - Hammer MuseumHammer MuseumThe Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California...
, Los Angeles, 1990
Collection
The Museum collection consists of work primarily from the 20th and 21st century. Included in the collection are many well-known artists, including Charles Burchfield, Gordon CheungGordon Cheung
Gordon Cheung is a contemporary artist who captures the mood of the global collapse of civilization where moral, economic, and environmental crises have spun out of control...
, Ori Gersht
Ori Gersht
Ori Gersht is an Israeli fine art photographer. He is a professor of photography at the University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, Kent, England. Gersht lives and works in London.- Work :...
, Red Grooms
Red Grooms
Red Grooms is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life...
, Robert Longo
Robert Longo
Robert Longo is an American painter and sculptor. Longo became famous in the 1980s for his "Men in the Cities" series, which depicted sharply dressed businessmen writhing in contorted emotion.-Early life and education:...
, Loretta Lux
Loretta Lux
Loretta Lux was born in Dresden, East Germany and is a fine art photographer known for her surreal portraits of young children. She currently lives and works in Monaco....
, William Morris
William Morris (glass artist)
William Morris is an American glass artist. He was born in Carmel, California, USA. He was educated at California State University, Chico, California and Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington...
, Ulf Puder, Hiraki Sawa, Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson
Kenneth Snelson is a contemporary sculptor and photographer. His sculptural works are composed of flexible and rigid components arranged according to the idea of 'tensegrity', although Snelson does not use the term....
, Robert Stackhouse
Robert Stackhouse
Robert Stackhouse is an American artist and sculptor. Stackhouse graduated with a Bachelor Degree from the University of South Florida in 1965. He later earned a masters degree at the University of Maryland, College Park in studio art...
, and Anne Wilson
Anne Wilson (artist)
Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of Fiber art to other media...
. The museum is also committed to the preservation and development of Arts in East Tennessee. The collection holds examples of work by many of East Tennessee's greatest artists, including Lloyd Branson
Lloyd Branson
Enoch Lloyd Branson was an American artist best known for his portraits of Southern politicians and depictions of early East Tennessee history....
, Catherine Wiley
Catherine Wiley
Anna Catherine Wiley was an American artist active primarily in the early twentieth century. After training with the Art Students League of New York and receiving instruction from artists such as Lloyd Branson and Frank DuMond, Wiley painted a series of impressionist works that won numerous...
, Joseph Delaney
Joseph Delaney (artist)
Joseph Delaney was an African American artist who became a part of the New York art scene at the time of the Harlem Renaissance....
, Walter Hollis Stevens, Richard Jolley, and Bessie Harvey
Bessie Harvey
Bessie Harvey was an American artist best known for her sculptures constructed out of found objects, primarily pieces of found wood. Harvey was the seventh of thirteen children born to Homer and Rosie Mae White...
.
The museum has a collection of nine Thorne Miniature Rooms. The rooms are notable miniatures, designed by Narcissa Niblack Thorne. The largest collection of Thorne Miniature Rooms is located at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
.
In 2009, the museum announced plans for the permanent installation of a sculpture in glass to be created by artist Richard Jolley. The sculpture will cover the museum's Great Hall, an area 100 feet long by 40 feet wide, making it one of the nations largest artworks made of glass. The sculpture is still in its early stages of design. No date has been set for completion.
Exhibitions
In 2008, the museum opened Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee, the KMA's first-ever permanent installation, incorporating works from the museum’s own holdings as well as loans from other institutions and collectors. The exhibition documents the art history of East Tennessee and its many "connections to the larger currents of American art are largely unknown, and certainly underappreciated." Artists include Catherine WileyCatherine Wiley
Anna Catherine Wiley was an American artist active primarily in the early twentieth century. After training with the Art Students League of New York and receiving instruction from artists such as Lloyd Branson and Frank DuMond, Wiley painted a series of impressionist works that won numerous...
, Lloyd Branson
Lloyd Branson
Enoch Lloyd Branson was an American artist best known for his portraits of Southern politicians and depictions of early East Tennessee history....
, Joseph Delaney
Joseph Delaney (artist)
Joseph Delaney was an African American artist who became a part of the New York art scene at the time of the Harlem Renaissance....
, Beauford Delaney
Beauford Delaney
Beauford Delaney was an American modernist painter.-Early life:Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in 1901. Delaney’s parents were prominent and respected members of Knoxville's black community. His father Samuel was both a barber and a Methodist minister...
, and Bessie Harvey
Bessie Harvey
Bessie Harvey was an American artist best known for her sculptures constructed out of found objects, primarily pieces of found wood. Harvey was the seventh of thirteen children born to Homer and Rosie Mae White...
.
The KMA has a commitment to the exhibition of work by modern and contemporary artists. Past exhibitions at the Museum have featured solo exhibitions by contemporary artists such as Anne Wilson
Anne Wilson (artist)
Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of Fiber art to other media...
, Jun Kaneko
Jun Kaneko
is a Japanese ceramic artist living in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. In 1942 he was born in Nagoya, Japan, where he studied painting during his high school years. He came to the United States in 1963 to continue those studies at Chouinard Institute of Art when his focus was drawn to...
, Candida Höfer
Candida Höfer
Candida Höfer is a Cologne, Germany-based photographer and a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like other Becher students – Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth – Höfer's work is known for technical perfection and a strictly Conceptual approach...
, Jim Campbell
Jim Campbell
James Tower Campbell is a retired American professional ice hockey player. He played 285 games in the National Hockey League for the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Chicago Blackhawks, Montreal Canadiens, St...
, Anton Vidokle
Anton Vidokle
Anton Vidokle is a Russian artist, curator, and writer. In 1999, he founded e-flux, a paid contemporary art newswire and critical journal. From 2006 to 2007, he organized unitednationsplaza, a temporary art school in Berlin involving well-known contemporary artists and critics including Boris...
, Johanna Billing
Johanna Billing
Johanna Billing is a conceptual artist from Sweden, working mainly with video. She is best known for the works "You Don't Love Me Yet" and "Magical World" . She deals with issues related to learning and how time plays a key role in this process...
, Eva Zeisel
Eva Zeisel
Eva Striker Zeisel is a Hungarian-born industrial designer known for her work with ceramics, primarily from the period after she immigrated to the United States. Her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships...
, Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
, and Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installation, architecture, curating, photography, film, and social, political and cultural criticism. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008...
.
The museum also has an ongoing interest in the creation of first solo museum shows for promising new artists. As part of this ongoing series, KMA has been host to solo exhibitions by artists such as Tam Van Tran, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph
Oliver Payne and Nick Relph
Oliver Payne and Nick Relph are British artist-filmmakers who have collaborated since 1999. Oliver Payne was born in 1977, Nick Relph in 1979. Both studied at Kingston University, London. Payne failed his undergraduate Intermedia course in 2000, and Relph was "booted out" the same year...
, Clare Rojas, Sarah Hobbs, Michael Raedecker
Michael Raedecker
Michael Raedecker is a Dutch artist based in London.Raedecker studied fashion at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1985-1990...
, Timothy Horn, Seonna Hong
Seonna Hong
Seonna Hong is a contemporary Los Angeles-based artist working in the genre known as lowbrow or alternatively, pop surrealism.Her work as a background painter has appeared in animation for television and motion pictures, most notably in the Nickelodeon series, My Life as a Teenage Robot, for which...
, and Tomory Dodge
Tomory Dodge
Tomory Dodge is an American artist.-Childhood:Born Jason Tomory Dodge in Denver, Colorado, the eldest of three sons. His mother, Madeleine Dodge, an accomplished regional artist in Denver, Colorado and his father, David C. Dodge III, a physician both encouraged his development as an artist from a...
.
External links
- Knoxville Museum of Art
- Knoxville Museum of Art, Videos
- Knoxville Museum of Art on Facebook
- Knoxville Museum of Art on Twitter
- Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and CultureTennessee Encyclopedia of History and CultureThe Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture is a reference book on the U.S. state of Tennessee that was published in book form in 1998 and has also been available online since 2002...